WASHINGTON, March 30 (UPI) -- A national security official who was in the White House with Richard Clarke on Sept. 11, 2001, is disputing Clarke's version of the day's events.
Franklin Miller, who worked alongside former National Security Council staffer Clarke, told the New York Times Clarke's version of events in the White House Situation Room that day "is a much better screenplay than reality was," the newspaper reported Tuesday.
Miller, who is identified as a senior aide to Condoleezza Rice, said Clarke's version, "while it would 'make a great movie,' was more melodramatic" than the events he recalled. Clarke "did a hell of a job that day," Miller said, adding, "We all did."
In an interview with the Times, Miller said he does not recall, "many of the most dramatic moments" that appear in Clarke's recent book including the assertion that Miller "urged" Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "to take a helicopter out of the Pentagon, part of which was still burning, or that Rumsfeld responded, "I am too goddamn old to go to an alternate site."
Miller told the Times he never talked to Rumsfeld that day.
